The pack of hyenas that makes up the irrational portion of the Oilers fanbase has found new prey. They have moved past Shawn Horcoff, last year's victim. They've beaten up on Tom Gilbert this fall, but the quality of the blue overall is so bad that pointing a finger at 77 seems both cruel and dangerous. It looks like the new whipping boy is none other than former golden child Sam Gagner.

Sam Gagner is 21 years old. He has played his entire NHL career on a terrible team, and each season managed to be one of their top 5 scorers. He's also improving in some secondary areas, to the point where the Edmonton Oilers may actually have two NHL calibre centers (the other being Horcoff).

Let's begin our look at Sam Gagner with the two loudest voices in the crowd currently:

He doesn't deliver enough offense

He doesn't deliver anything else

Let's start with the offense. If we can agree that the best judge of offensive ability is even strength scoring, then Gabriel Desjardins dandy 5x5/60 metric gives us a quick look into how things are going.

Ryan Jones (2.24 in limited play)

Ales Hemsky (2.11)

Sam Gagner (2.03)

Dustin Penner (1.98)

The complete list is here and as one might expect the young rookies are well down the list. No surprise, the NHL is the toughest league on the planet and the Oilers are running those kids out there at an incredible clip. All those 15 minute nights add up unless you're delivering offense consistently.

WHAT ABOUT CORSI?????

Jim Corsi's measuring stick is a terrific help when trying to figure out who's helping over the course of a season. We certainly need to view this puppy through an adjusted lens, but the overall picture is pretty damn clear. Here are the relCorsi numbers for Edmonton's forwards so far this season:

Taylor Hall 15.6

Dustin Penner 15.2

Jordan Eberle 12.0

Sam Gagner 9.4

Shawn Horcoff 6.8

Ales Hemsky 3.9

Andrew Cogliano 0.0

Steve MacIntyre -7.0

Gilbert Brule -7.3

Zack Stortini -8.6

Ryan Jones -18.2

Magnus Pääjärvi -19.4

Colin Fraser -19.8

JF Jacques -35.9

The top 2 lines (Horcoff-Hall-Eberle and Gagner-Penner-Hemsky) were doing exceptionally well considering the nuclear disaster that is the Oilers blueline. Cogliano, MacIntyre, Brule and Stortini are below sea level relCorsi but there are lots of reasons for that and I don't think we can blame any of them for sins real or imagined so far this season.

Ryan Jones, Colin Fraser and Pääjärvi are getting killed by this measure and I'm prepared to admit that Fraser has been a very disappointing player. You may wonder about Jones appearing so high in scoring and so low in Corsi, but that imo has a lot to do with low time on ice per game and luck. If Jones can deliver the kind of offense shown in 5x5/60 all season long he's going to have a career.

GAGNER IS WAY BEHIND

No. He's right on time. Sam Gagner's entire NHL career has been played outside the playoffs. It's ridiculous to blame the youth of a team for not winning; the real culprit here is a lack of depth blue and 3-4 line forwards who can play the game to something near even.

Losing organizations blame their best players (example: Montreal Expos dealing Gary Carter) and hopeless organizations trade their youth (example: NYI, Maple Leafs) miles before they're ready.I've seen and heard a few things over the last week or so in regard to Sam Gagner's inability to step forward. I find it amazing that people feel this way, since he is:

on pace for his first 20-goal season

leads the team in EV scoring (5-5-10)

is playing 14.5 minutes a night at even strength and is managing a 5x5/60 number above 2.00

The Edmonton Oilers have a lot of problems. Sam Gagner isn't one of them.

Lowetide has been one of the Oilogosphere's shining lights for over a century. You can check him out here at OilersNation and at lowetide.ca. He is also the host of Lowdown with Lowetide weekday mornings 10-noon on TSN 1260.

I have come to the conclusion that most of the frequent penis riders on this site are a bunch of hypocritical sheep.

They prop and support eachothers asinine comments as truth and team up on people who didnt care to spell check the two sentences they typed.

I dont know where the nerves are found to call others names and insult their opinions, when in reality they just recycle others peoples thoughts and opinions they believe (not know) are right.

Where does all this venom and hatred come from? Your posts are distinctly negative and full of bile. Some of your points may be valid but I wouldn't know as I can't get past all of that negativity. Case in point is the post I have quoted here. Your first sentence almost made me skip over the rest of what you said. Your second comment didn't get any better. And your third sentence was so hypocritical when read directly after the first sentence that it actually made me laugh.

You hate Horcoff. I get it. A lot of people disagree with you. I am one of them. I like him as a player and as an Oiler and I think the Oilers would suck a lot harder without him.

Supporting opinions that happen to jive with our own isn't recycling other's ideas. If a lot of people believe a thing then MAYBE, just MAYBE, there might be something there.

Fistly, Gags has yet to play in the playoffs. But when he's easily knocked off the puck in the regular season, you wonder how he'll react to big D-men being extra mean in the quest for Lord Stanley's cup.

Sam Gagner is young. He is talented. He is likely to be a 50-60 point top9 centre.

He is also not large. He is not physical. He is not very good at faceoffs. He is not a penalty killer. He can't run a power play. He can't carry a line.

I like Sam, he's a good player, a good kid, and will have a decent NHL career. But he's also exactly what we keep saying we DON'T want. He's a small, soft, skill forward. A good one, but still, doesn't fill a notable need on this team going forward. We have plenty of small skill forwards. We have plenty of playmakers. We have some good centres coming up that will fill our Top9 roles.

Sam is an excellent *asset* right now to obtain for us what we DO need going forward... a larger, tougher, more versatile forward. PK, Faceoffs, size and grit. There's enough skill around that we don't need someone with great offensive skill... but this team will not be crying out in 3 years for a 5'10" playmaking centre with a 45% FO and no PK time. We have been, and will be, crying out for a tough-minutes, 55%FO PKer who won't look out of place with Top9 minutes and PK time we can count on.

Sam is a great player heading into his prime, but this team needs someone different. Not any fault of Sams, but for the good of the 2014 Oilers, he needs to be moved.

I have come to the conclusion that most of the frequent penis riders on this site are a bunch of hypocritical sheep.

They prop and support eachothers asinine comments as truth and team up on people who didnt care to spell check the two sentences they typed.

I dont know where the nerves are found to call others names and insult their opinions, when in reality they just recycle others peoples thoughts and opinions they believe (not know) are right.

"eachothers" is two words. "Other" should also have an apostrophe and an "s" at the end, since their comments is possessive. (each other's)

In fact, this entire post is a grammatical abomination.

The point of all of this is that if you are whining about Sam Gagner or Shawn Horcoff at this point, then you are blaming the wrong players. If you can't see that, then that tells us all, quite a lot about you as a fan of hockey.

I think Sam will be ok. I wonder if he may be rethinking the "I am Quicker than stronger thing" The only issue I see is soft down the middle. It is an absolute must to have a big stud 1st line center and a dominating 4th line center, as we will have Gags and probably Horc as #2 and 3. I see no way we can deal Horc in 2 or 3 years.

Firstly, Hall from Eberle reminded me of the Crosby from Iginla goal to win the gold medal. Both wingers with heads down, hear the call from their teammate, 'almost' no look pass to set up a nice goal, win the game. In both cases you can hear clearly over the TV the call from said teammate to said winger. Awesome stuff!

Secondly, LT, with all your great hockey blogs and writing im starting to think your one of those old men that also cruises the internet for pics of hawt women... that is a fine piece of ass on display there ;) Also, I have to wonder if this was a post in response to Baggedmilk complaining about corsi over on your site?

Thirdly, I really hope Renney can keep the boys motivated like this and we roll into the SJ game with something to prove.

GO OILERS*

*I was never on board the ELPH wagon!

I actually searched for "world's best female bum" and the photo you see appeared. Mr. Google is a brilliant man!

Let's get something straight here: Horcoff was deservedly last year's victim. His production was crap, his +/- abysmal, and given his salary he wasn't providing bang for the buck.

Or am I just a hyena from the irrational portion of the fanbase?

Horc had a bad year last year playing injured on a heroically awful team starting in the defensive zone a disproportionate amount of time. Nobody is trying to say he was great last year and nobody is saying that he didn't fail to provide bang for the buck.

The pack of mouthbreathers that called for him to be sent to the minors immediately were the hyenas. Those and the guys who will crap on on Horc for whatever he does because they don't like his contract.

My problem with Gagner is more around fit, rather than progress. If, projecting out a couple of years, your top two LWs are Hall and Paajarvi, and your top RW is Eberle (I was not a booster going into the season, but the kid impresses me with his hockey sense), where does Gagner fit?

The team's top line is small, and Gagner can't win a face off to save his life, so he doesn't fit as the number 1 centre. If we were talking about playing with 2 serious power forwards on either wing one of which could win face-offs, my view might be different, but that's not what is going to happen in Edmonton.

The face off problem and with Pitlick and Martindale in the system suggests we have a second line centre coming, so we don't NEED him there. And we have the untradeable Horcoff if neither is ready/pans out.

My assumption is hemsky is gone before the end of next year, which would open a spot for Gagner on the RW, except he is small and while his offence is okay, its not so awesome as to offset his weaknesses/size limitations.

Which leaves me with this conclusion: If you can get 50-60 points out of Gagner as a second line RW, or get 50 points out of an Omark or some other player (I had hopes for Brule which are fading), aren't you better off trading Gagner for a strong defensive prospect (Cowen from Ottawa would be nice) to shore up an area of weakness? Seems to me, the Oilers would be much better off going that route than blindly holding on to Gagner because he was a high pick.

Even if Gagner's detractors are right and all he will ever be is a #2 centre, that's still pretty good.

~It's good for a team to have a #2 centre - the #2 centre plays on the 2nd most important line on the team. It's fine to say "oh we may have this guy turn into that down the road so Sam won't be needed...", but we have to wait for that guy to turn into that #2 centre before Arnotting Sam out of town.

Centres are hard to get and have a lot of value - nothing will be lost by waiting and seeing what we have here with Sam. My guess is that he's going to be a pretty decent NHLer and a great Oiler.

I love the line in the article, "Losing organizations blame their best players (example: Montreal Expos dealing Gary Carter) and hopeless organizations trade their youth (example: NYI, Maple Leafs) miles before they're ready." We see it in all sports - patience is the key with our young players.

I'll be the fist to say that I wouldn't mind being behind that either.

I still think Gagner is young and I believe that he is a very smart player. To me it looks like he has been concentrating on his positioning and defensive game this year, trying to be a better all around player. He will have a long NHL career at center.

I like Penner, and I thought he was great last season, but even then he's shown stretches of inconsistency. More importantly, but Penner simply does not give all his effort every game. To compare him with a guy like Peckham, who also is not renowned for exceptional skating ability, and is even younger and more inexperienced, he amazes me every shift by skating hard and keeping a simple game, and producing decent if not great results. Sometimes it gets to a point where it is NOT the coaches responsibility to light a fire under a player constantly.

Gilbert can't play defense, and despite his size, apparently does not know of it.

I like Cogliano's work effort, but this is a professional league. We don't give out A's for only effort, there have to be some results.

Firstly, Hall from Eberle reminded me of the Crosby from Iginla goal to win the gold medal. Both wingers with heads down, hear the call from their teammate, 'almost' no look pass to set up a nice goal, win the game. In both cases you can hear clearly over the TV the call from said teammate to said winger. Awesome stuff!

Secondly, LT, with all your great hockey blogs and writing im starting to think your one of those old men that also cruises the internet for pics of hawt women... that is a fine piece of ass on display there ;) Also, I have to wonder if this was a post in response to Baggedmilk complaining about corsi over on your site?

Thirdly, I really hope Renney can keep the boys motivated like this and we roll into the SJ game with something to prove.

I have to admit, it appears Sam Gagner's arrows are pointing up, Oh wait a minute, I was doing a handstand.

No need to die on that sword there is still time to save yourself.

Hello Shadi, how are you doing?

Pleasantries aside I would like to say one kind word of advice to you, his name is Sam FREAKING GAGNER!!!

Im not just pointing at you, sorry if you feel this way because i've seen this blatant misspell of his last name from many others, but to see you do it in three consecutive posts I felt obliged to mention it.

Since your bringing up Gagner where do you see him fitting in long term especially if the Oilers do draft another center where does Gagner fit considering the Oilers still have to pay Horcoff? Does he still have enough skill to be a number one center or is best we can hope for a number two guy behind some other young talented center?

Also it's amazing what a little extra ice time will do for you. Brule's been a bit of a forgotten player he was given all that money and been shoved to the third line along with Pajarvi which isn't doing much for there stats. But both looked really good tonight.

Pleasantries aside I would like to say one kind word of advice to you, his name is Sam FREAKING GAGNER!!!

Im not just pointing at you, sorry if you feel this way because i've seen this blatant misspell of his last name from many others, but to see you do it in three consecutive posts I felt obliged to mention it.

"Do you think the Oilers could of gotten a 1st round pick for Gagne this past draft"

(a) Its Gagner. Sam Freaking G.A.G.N.E.R.

(b) *mega facepalm*

And it's "Do you think the Oilers could HAVE"

Anyway, It's hard for the average fan to see that the 3-4 lines make much of a difference. When I was a kid I used to hate Craig MacTavish because he didn't score. As I grew up, I looked back and realized that I was an idiot.... Like too many Oilers fans.... Idiots!

Point is, Gagner is supposed to be our number one centre soon and he just doesn't produce enough of what the pack of hyena's sees. G-A-P. It's ridiculous. People think that if he scored more like say, Stamkos last year, the team would be great. The Bolts were great last year, right?

Third and fouth line guys just aren't sexy. But not having good ones is deadly. Remember the last really good 3rd line centre we had, Stoll (speaking of sexy!)? How is he doing lately?

What didn't make sense was the people hanging all the Oilers problems pretty much soley on his one half-working shoulder.

We all need someone to complain about. Seems more and more every year people are just drawing names out of a hat.

That's another thing I take issue with, the "Horcoff was injured" argument.

If his shoulder was that much of a problem, why in the hell did he play last season? It was a lost cause from December (if not sooner) onward, so why didn't the Oilers make him rest and heal up if his shoulder was so wonky?

I never bought the injury excuse.

And he was never the sole problem with this club last season, but he was hardly part of the solution.

What is indisputably irrational is to continue comparing a player like Sam Gagner to other mostly marginal NHL players on the second worst team in hockey and using that comparison to proclaim Gagner is "right on time".

That works really well in Special Ed classes but, if a player who was drafted in the expectation that he would produce offense, might have a 20 goal season in his fourth season in the league is just a little sad.

A player like Matt Duchene, who we got to see tonight, is "right on time" despite being almost two years younger than Gagner.

Duchene, the 19 year old, had a dreadful start to his sophomore season but currently has 20 points in 22 games, is plus 7, is winning 51.2 percent of his faceoffs, plays fewer minutes than Gagner and can actually produce on the powerplay is "right on time".

It's unfortunate LT than you need to resort to calling those who question your propensity for calling mules thoroughbreds hyenas.

What is indisputably irrational is to continue comparing a player like Sam Gagner to other mostly marginal NHL players on the second worst team in hockey and using that comparison to proclaim Gagner is "right on time".

That works really well in Special Ed classes but, if a player who was drafted in the expectation that he would produce offense, might have a 20 goal season in his fourth season in the league is just a little sad.

A player like Matt Duchene, who we got to see tonight, is "right on time" despite being almost two years younger than Gagner.

Duchene, the 19 year old, had a dreadful start to his sophomore season but currently has 20 points in 22 games, is plus 7, is winning 51.2 percent of his faceoffs, plays fewer minutes than Gagner and can actually produce on the powerplay is "right on time".

It's unfortunate LT than you need to resort to calling those who question your propensity for calling mules thoroughbreds hyenas.

Duchene's relCor is pretty good too, not that that means much.

~ Oh be quiet you Hyena ~, He's only 21 and is in his 4th year and is 2nd in his draft class in scoring and corsi, desjar, blah blah, etc...............

"Not any fault of Sams, but for the good of the 2014 Oilers, he needs to be moved."

For the good of the 2014 Oilers I sure hope he isnt moved. This team is in desperate need of 4 quality players down the middle and currently can boast 2 in the entire organization. Gagner and Horcoff*.

If, hockey gods willing, the Oilers manage to get a true #1 C then that will likely mean that a 36 year old Horcoff wil be the #3 in 2014. Since there is no one currently playing C in the entire organization that looks like a real #2 NHL C, Gagner better not get dealt until a better option is gained.